Earworm . . . Unreal

It has been YEARS since I heard this gem from the original Unreal Tournament (UT99). It was the music for my favorite level, Deck 16

I give you . . . Go Down!



UT99 was awesome for a lot of reasons: the music, the flexibility of computer opposition "bots," the many many mods and total conversions like the counter-terrorism TC Strike Force.

Oh, and the various nude bot skins and the one risque voice mod . . . . RAWR!

"Make a promise / Take a vow . . ."

Today's earworm, from the Moody Blues:

My (Rather Delayed) Reaction to Barack Obama's Acceptanc Speech

As a political junkie for over 40 years and someone who has delivered speeches to big crowds, I have to say one thing about Barack Obama's acceptance speech Thursday night: It was nothing less than a masterwork. I haven't heard such a speech in my entire life.

If you've never heard him speak, do so. Now.

The nomination of Barack Obama ensures that for the first time in my life, I am voting FOR someone. No "lesser of two evils" here, for me. Nor is it what has often been the case, the evil of two lessers. He has triumphed when people wrote him off, has persevered in the face of a multi-threaded smear-and-scare campaign, and has kept his cool throughout.

It feels good to support a winner, for a Change™

Finally, the song in my head:




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Listening to: R.E.M. - Imitation of Life (Live)
via FoxyTunes

"But you don't *look* Druish . . ." Feral Druids FTW!

The nice thing about WoW is that if you get tired of one class / race you can always try another. I got sick of the Blood Elf Paladin I played to 70, largely because once you get to 70, you become ltttle more than a band aid in plate mail. Nobody wants to play high level raids with a protection specialist (which I levelled to 70 as) or as a damage dealer because other classes do a better job in these roles). So, since I did not want to "just heal" and get blamed for dungeon wipe-outs, all I could do to get good gear for poor Chowndarr is play Player vs Player, which I detest.

So, I decided to try a Feral-specialist druid. Feral druids can heal (and often get to play band-aid in dungeons . . .) and they can do massive damage as shapeshifted stealth kitty-cats just like Assassination spec'd Rogues or "tank" like Rommel or Gurderian, better than a protection spec'd warrior in bear form. Like a paladin, shaman or priest, a druid can resurrect the dead, and like a mage or warlock they can do damage at a distance with spells. Unlike hunters, who needs a pet when you can shapeshift into an animal?

Not to mention that Rel is a handsome devil . . .

And, even better, with the 2.3 patch, it was quick getting to 54.

The current Elders song is teh roxxors. I've got it looping as Rel kicks butt in Felwood.


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Listening to: The Elders - Jailhouse of County Fife
via FoxyTunes

Yet another reason I love iTunes

A $25 music card was left on my desk yesterday. I used it to complete my collection of albums from The Elders.

Hard to go wrong with a song about the Irish Brigade in the American Civil War, IMHO.



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Listening to: The Elders - True Believer
via FoxyTunes

Ever look for something for a long time . . .

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Listening to: Emerald Rose - Four Jacks
via FoxyTunes . . . and suddenly realize that you had it all along?

Case in point: the "Listening to . . " in this post.

A bit of background: I am utterly addicted to David Weber's Honor Harrington novel series. The Honorverse has been described as "space opera as if CS Forrester had written it." It's got exploding spaceships, Byzantine politics, Tech That Makes Sense, Sound Tactics (too much sf/f military fiction does not, sadly), historical allusions, action, adventure, telepathic cats with prehensile tails and opposable thumbs and characters to both admire and revile.

Anyway, back in 2000 or so, Baen Books, publisher of the series, put the whole series onto CD-ROM and distributed a copy of the disc with each hardcover of War of Honor. Anyway, I got that book and the disc, and gleefully synced the entire series' pdb files to three PDAs since then.

Also on the disc was the three Echo's Children filksongs set in the Honorverse. And until yesterday, I did not know it. I've been all over the web looking for "No Quarter!" -- I saw the lyrics on some random filk site last year, and as soon as I realize it was a Honorverse song, I had to have it!

Now I do . . . and it was worth the wait! I just hope the upcoming Honorverse books (three next year, pray to Sharon)

Many SF series get worse for wear as time goes on; this one gets better. I also recommend the books that are not part of the main sequence of the series, like Crown of Slaves and (most especially) The Shadow of Saganami. Also, unlike many series, reading them in publication order is best. My favorite of the whole series? The Shadow of Saganami, without a doubt. Followed closely by Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, and Echoes of Honor (which is something of a trilogy in terms of the ongoing story).

The song concerns what could well have been a scene in Echoes . . . but in Echoes the actual wording was "To all Grayson ships, the order is: Lady Harrington, and No Mercy!"

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Listening to: Echo's Children - No Quarter
via FoxyTunes

What Am I Thankful For?

A very partial list . . .

Physical: A great job, a roof over my head, enough cash to pay the bills, bandwidth and the means to use it.
Social: Mom, Dad, Ron, Sophia and Sam. Friends like Michelle, David, Kayla, Matt, Richard, Sammy, Duncan, Isabel, Tim, Kate, Sue, Rachael, Don, Rob, Kajir, Heather, Dave, Diane, Gene, Aries, Nika, Mystique, Harley, Rita, Bug, Shalyn and Hillary.
Other: An awesome health care team led by Dr. Nelson . . . the fact that the evil that is Shrub will be out of office in about a year . . . RT and e-Tran . . . PCJ and Panera . . .the music that helped save my life this year: Seanan McGuire, The Elders, Emerald Rose, Leslie Fish, James Blunt, Tempest, Escape Key, Flogging Molly, Roy Zimmerman, Loreena Mckinnett, Niel Young and Weird Al Yankovic.
Media: Serenity / Firefly, D&D, World of Warcraft.

Musicstuff

For you iTunes fanatics: Foxy Tunes, the browser addon that allows you to control your music player (iTunes, or some others) from within your web browser (including Internet Exploder). Much coolness there...and in a new feature, it allows you to put a music signature line the one below into your blog posts. This little goodie supports LJ, Gmail, etc.

Item the second: I won these in a sales contest. I am impressed with this prize. While I am no audiophile, I really really have issues with what iPod earbuds do to my ears . . . and I don't like conventional audio headphones despite the great isolation they provide. Shur makes some very good earbuds with isolation you have to experience to believe it, but these sound better without stuffing memory foam in my poor abused audio canal. My speech-nerd daughter, she who says "You should never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear canal," would approve.



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Listening to: Red Alert - Hell March
via FoxyTunes

It figures...

US Navy runs out of Purple Hearts.

. . . in the middle of a fscking WAR.

The only thing I can say about this has been said better by Green Day.

Random Bursts of Bandwidth

1. The most sinister day of the year: International Left Handers' Day

2. Speaking of sinister, Karl Rove resigns as Shrub's political director effective at the end of August. Fortunately, Sen. Leahy (Senate Judiciary Committee) isn't buying.
The movie line that came to mind is " . . . always two, there are."

3. Today's selection from the Voices In My Head Chorus (Earworm) comes from Stevie Nicks

4. Strangeness: The World's Cutest Two Year Old™ and Her Mom™ met me for coffee at Starbucks this morning. *$s is within bike riding distance for the aforementioned Mom and Kid and walking distance from my place. While *$s is the Walmart of coffee shops, you can always count on eclectic music you've never heard before playing while sipping your choice of coffees (black, heavy French roast, the Guinness of Coffees. I was NOT in a mocha / latte / steam shot mood this morning). My preferred coffee shop is a bit further away for both Mom and Kid, has great Fair Trade / Organic coffee, very good food and local artwork for sale but the music they play is overproduced 70s-80s soft rock oldies from an XM Radio robo-station.
Go figure.